Fulbright Teacher Alumni Grant Application

Alumni of either the Fulbright Classroom Teacher Exchange Program or the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program may apply for funding through the Alumni Grants Program. The purpose of the Alumni Grants Program is to provide support to Fulbright Teacher Exchange alumni who wish to extend the Fulbright experience to their school and/or community through student exchanges, joint curriculum projects, electronic linkages or other projects of the teachers’ design. Please read the materials below to learn more about the program.

To Apply for the Alumni Grant

Before applying, please read the Alumni Grant Policies document thoroughly. A sample application is included in this document, but all applications must be submitted online using the link below.

Alumni Grant Budget Proposal: Please complete this budget proposal template and submit it via e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

If you are interested in applying for the alumni grant, please read through the following alumni grant samples for both programs to learn more about how alumni are using the funds to build upon their Fulbright experience:

Alumni Grant Expense Report: Please complete this Excel document to record your expenses from your Alumni Grant activity. The expenses recorded on this chart should match the receipts submitted to IIE.

Fulbright Classroom Teacher Exchange Program Alumni Grant Samples

Common Core Collaboration by Anne Juola-Rushton, (U.S. to UK, 2010-2011)

Juola-Rushton’s fall 2012 program focused on leadership and management for all levels of curriculum in the U.S. and UK. She collaborated with 12 UK teachers at St. James’ Primary School in Chorley, England to study key components of the UK’s OFSTED report and to share information on the United States’ newly developed Common Core Standards. Juola-Rushton worked with school board members, teachers and administrators and shadowed select UK teachers on implementation of the UK’s national curriculum. Meeting with teachers and administrators allowed Juola-Rushton to evaluate the quality of standards of teaching. She returned to her school in Florida and shared these best practices with her school district’s common core curricular design teams. The results from the project were also shared at a regional level via conferences.

How to Lead a Globally Sustainable Life by Suzanne Mayer (U.S. to India, 2011-2012)

Mayer’s project was designed to help students develop a deeper understanding of “sustainability” and how choices affect our global world. The project connected her 8th grade classroom in Seattle, WA with 8th grade students in Delhi, India via technology. Students investigated a range of sustainability issues and collected data from both parts of the world. The students then analyzed the data, created a presentation based on their findings and shared their findings with their counterparts via the iEARN network. Mayer sought to encourage students to build on their mathematics knowledge while also using critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration. She shared this project with other teachers in her school community to support the project in future years. Mayer also shared the curriculum, assessments and classroom materials throughout her district.

Windsor sought to build upon a virtual exchange project developed with her exchange partner, Noureddine Kahlaouy. Since their Fulbright Teacher Exchange, the two teachers and their classrooms have stayed connected through blogs and Skype sessions. Both exchange teachers wanted to develop this cross-cultural language project further. Windsor and Kahlaouy first met in the U.S. to develop a common curriculum and create interactive multimedia online exercises. This allowed the teachers and students to better communicate via Skype. The teachers then traveled to Marrakech to construct an audio-video facility in Kahlaouy’s school, thus improving functionality. They continued to develop the common curriculum with resources from the Moroccan school. Their work was shared through the online forums, VoiceThread and LingtLanguage. Windsor also presented their work at a regional conference of World Languages teachers in New England.

During her Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program in 2011, Ileana Jiménez researched issues of bullying and harassment with LGBT students in Mexico City’s university high school system. During her program, she provided workshops to local schools on LGBT inclusion, delivered keynote speeches at the first international conference on bullying hosted by Mexico City’s Secretary of Education and provided workshops on how to create safe schools for all students. In summer 2012, Ileana utilized an alumni grant to return to Mexico to continue the work begun while on her Fulbright program with her host university colleagues and to share her research with Mexican organizations who work with LGBT youth. Her alumni activities involved working with educational leaders in local schools to help implement LGBT-friendly curriculum and policies into their schools; giving presentations about her capstone project results, and working with school and university contacts to develop avenues for continued collaboration. While in Mexico, Jimenez was invited to publish her capstone project results in her Mexican host school’s academic journal, Logos. She continued to disseminate her work by presenting at several educational conferences.

Course Development and Community Outreach by Terence Gilheany (U.S. to Israel, 2011-2012)

Terence Gilheany’s alumni grant project goals were to educate U.S. students and community members about religion and politics using case studies developed as part of his Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program experience in Israel. In Israel, Terence explored religious studies in both Israeli and Palestinian schools. In August 2012, Gilheany used his Fulbright alumni grant funds to develop a new elective course for his U.S. school’s religion department called “Religion and Politics,” which he taught during the 2012-2013 school year. Through his course, Terence challenged his students to develop their own viewpoints on how religion and politics relate to each other and to think critically about these issues. In addition, he used alumni grant funds to develop an interactive presentation based on his Fulbright research which he shared with other teachers to raise awareness about how teaching religion can be used to decrease prejudicial beliefs among students. This project built upon his Fulbright capstone project and allowed him to explore his experiences from a new perspective after receiving feedback from students and community members.